Asia Pacific M&A Association Summit in Shenzhen

Already, China is the largest market in the world for IoT with a 22% market share and over 1/3 of the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) connections for multiple machines, devices and appliances to the internet by multiple networks are in China.

China’s IOT and M2M market value is estimated to grow from $80 billion in 2015 to over $160 billion by 2020. China’s semiconductor consumption growth has continued and in 2016 far exceeded the worldwide semiconductor market growth for the sixth consecutive year. Specifically, China’s semiconductor consumption market grew by 2.9% in 2016 to reach a new record of 60.6% of the global market while the worldwide semiconductor market only grew by 1.1%. During the past ten years, China’s semiconductor consumption has grown at a 12.0% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), while total worldwide consumption has only grown at a 3.2% CAGR. The worldwide semiconductor market as reported by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistic organization (WSTS) has grown by $91 billion from 2006 to 2016 while China’s semiconductor consumption as reported by China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) has grown by US$150 billion, in the same period.

WISeKey International Holding Ltd (“WISeKey”, SIX: WIHN, OTCQX: WIKYY), a leading cybersecurity and IoT company, today announced that Carlos Moreira, Founder and CEO presented to delegates of the Asia Pacific M&A Association Summit in Shenzhen his plans to quickly expand the reach of WISeKey in the growing Chinese market and become one of the country’s leading providers of Semiconductors, Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain services.

The over-arching objective of WISekey in China is to establish a market foothold with credible in-country leaders to maximize revenue in the near-term and realize reputable category position in the sectors of: retail, financial transaction, mobile communications, automotive, smart cities, consumer products, healthcare, smart card, industrial, transportation, and IT infrastructure, in the long-term.

Switzerland, the home country of WISeKey, enjoys a pioneering relationship with China, being one of the first western countries that recognised the People’s Republic of China in 1950 – just one year after its creation. Switzerland was also early to recognise China as a market economy in 2007. In 2013, Switzerland became the first European country to sign a free-trade agreement with Beijing and, in 2016, Switzerland was one of the first countries in Europe to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

WISeKey is already manufacturing the WISePhone in Shenzhen and is localizing its IoT IP and technology.

WISeKey entered the sophisticated Chinese semiconductor and IoT market through the signing of several commercial agreements with Chinese companies. Recently, WISeKey announced that its IoT Blockchain technology is to be deployed in selected smart cities in China while its chips are already deployed for the Nanjing Smart City project. Chinese companies, such as Feitian Technologies, are working with WISekey to develop innovative hardware and software solutions to enable users, applications and devices to securely authenticate the networks, verify the authenticity and integrity of firmware upgrades, and limit access to sensitive information to authentic users only.

The WISeKey China JV which was established earlier this year, is expected to fully capitalize on WISeKey’s pioneering role in secure IoT and M2M communication.

Mr. Moreira said: “WISeKey China is well positioned to take advantage of significant market expansion opportunities in China by combining the international brand and trust model of WISeKey with Chinese technologies and know how. This market represents a great revenue opportunity for WISeKey as China is currently the world’s largest consumer of chips, but it manufactures only 16 percent of the semiconductors it uses domestically. Currently, China imports about $200 billion worth of chips annually – a value exceeding its oil imports. To cultivate a domestic industry, the government of China has slashed taxes for chip makers and plans to invest as much as $32 billion to become a world leader in design and manufacturing.”

About WISeKey
WISeKey (SIX: WIHN; OTCQX: WIKYY) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems with a patented process. WISeKey’s Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust (“RoT”) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com.